Makueni county voted best county in terms of development

Governor Kivutha kibwanas’ county, Makueni has gained fame and also being used as reference point in this Year’s devolution conference attracting many speakers who urged other counties to pay a visit for benchmarking.

Makueni County was named as one of the counties utilising county funds properly boosting growth and Development.

President Uhuru Kenyatta through a live television speech broadcasted to delegates through a link recognized Makueni and Mandera counties for making steps worth to imitate.

“I commend governor Kibwana for rolling out in Makueni their own version of subsidized healthcare and food processing plant,” President Uhuru said.

Uhuru urged other counties to imitate Makueni County led by Prof Kivutha Kibwana adding that proper use of public funds allocated to county governments was key to successful implementation of devolution.

Former prime minister Raila Odinga also praised Kivutha Kibwanas’ Government for launching the fresh fruit processing plant last year.

Makueni Governor Kibwana praised the President for his good speech adding that his invitation to counties to work together closely with his government was worthy.

Homa Bay senator Moses kajwang was among other Speakers at the conference who praised Professor Kibwana and urged other counties to benchmark from Makueni instead of flying to foreign countries like Singapore for the same.

“The other day we invited Prof Kibwana to the Senate, he did not complain. He came with his entire government including the speaker and we took a whole day looking at the issues raised. Other governors should follow this,” Kajwang said.

presenting on governance and public participation at the Conference on Thursday Makueni Governor Kibwana said that his decision to attend the Senate summons was because the people of Makueni had asked him to do so.

“One of the reasons why we appeared at the Senate when we were summoned is because it is the people who had asked us to go. By failing to go it means we would then get into problems with them,” Kibwana said.

Kivutha discussed of Makueni’s village to village set up in the public participation approach adding that up to 120,000 people participated in this year’s County Integrated Development Plan validation in over 3,000 villages.

“Some leaders are afraid of the Public Participation because the people will ask you questions when you go to them,” Prof Kibwana said.

Kivutha said his government is now thinking of introducing an open contracting system as a way of public participation so that it is clear who asked for what jobs and who are the directors of the bidding companies.